The advantages of minimally invasive endoscopic surgical procedures are well documented throughout the literature. They require substantially smaller incisions that are less traumatic to the patient resulting in accelerated patient recovery and convalescence. Many body cavities can be entered through small incisions by utilizing fiber optic visual systems and special surgical instruments. Thoroscopy, arthroscopy, cystoscopy and laparoscopy are some of the most common of these surgical procedures. One of the most common endoscopic surgical procedures is laparoscopic surgery. The abdominal wall is pierced with a trocar assembly including a sharp trocar within a hollow tube or access port. Multiple other ports are utilized, depending on the operative requirements, to introduce various other devices, including a light source and optical instruments to visualize the operative field and for the purpose of completing the surgical procedure.
Many times during the course of such an endoscopic surgical procedure, specimens must be removed from the patient's body through the relatively small incision. For this purpose, the specimen to be removed must best be captured in a reservoir so that it can be sequestered. Many of these specimens are noxious and should be properly encapsulated or enclosed to prevent contamination as they are removed through the body cavity incision.
The Wilk patent discloses a device that is extremely difficult to operate because it requires the opening of a relatively large planar sheet or membrane in an unstable area. This requires the sheet to be located on shifting organs. Also, the device disclosed in the Wilk patent does not have the capacity to easily remotely open or close the specimen collector. The Wilk device requires the surgeon to open a planar sheet in the body cavity, with extreme difficulty, with other instruments. The planar sheet has no integral mechanism to remotely open the sheet. Rather, it requires other instruments to perform this function and is not remotely controllable.
Surgical specimen receptacles for use in endoscopic surgical procedures are known in the art, as shown in the Clayman, et al. U.S. Pat. No. 5,037,379, where one is formed from a thin polymeric sheet material having a drawstring secured to an open end of the receptacle for the purpose of closing the receptacle around the specimen or other specimen to be removed. The receptacle is closed by pulling on the drawstring from a proximal location outside of the body cavity. Such specimen receptacles or surgical specimen bags are made from a readily collapsible sheet material so that the receptacle can be easily collapsed into a much smaller volume for insertion through the access port. The surgical receptacle sheet material should be a material that is non-porous, flexible and tear resistant. Often times the specimen to be removed is a diseased organ, such as an acute appendix, that contains a substantial amount of infectious fluid. For this purpose, the receptacle should have a remotely and easily controllable entry port that allows quick and easy introduction of the specimen without unwanted manipulation of the receptacle and the specimen. It further requires an easy remote control to encapsulate and enclose the specimen so it can be removed from the body cavity without contamination.
One of the problems associated with prior art endoscopic surgical specimen receptacles used in minimally invasive surgical procedures is that opening of such a receptacle in a body cavity requires manipulation of the receptacle with a surgical tool inserted in the body cavity through another access port. The additional effort in such a procedure may be eliminated in accordance with the principles of the present invention.